


Give Thanks For Birth

by BarbaraKaterina



Series: 2018 Holiday fics [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Still, Thanksgiving, Unplanned Pregnancy, and not necessarily as a super positive topic, both onyl int he background, demisexual Laurent, mawlid, tis the season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 20:24:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16709419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarbaraKaterina/pseuds/BarbaraKaterina
Summary: “Auguste is a cross between a greyhound and a golden retriever, and Laurent is a cat on a good day and snake on a bad one.”Damen hummed. “Auguste is much more your type, isn’t he?”“Absolutely,” Jokaste confirmed. “Both visually and when it comes to character.”Damen opened his mouth when a voice from behind them said: “Should I be trying to arrange for a threesome for you this time, then?”





	Give Thanks For Birth

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Thanksgiving, and happy belated Mawlid!
> 
> Also happy Guru Nanak Jayanti and Kartik Purnima, though I didn't find a way to work those into the story.

Damen met Laurent through Jokaste’s work.

It was at an office Thanksgiving party. Who knew why the the Department of State felt the need to organize Thanksgiving parties at all, when the only way it was actually celebrated was by families sitting together around the table stuffing their faces and when it was all just a way to pretend the early US history wasn’t one long genocide anyway, as Jokaste had ranted at length while getting ready, but nevertheless, a Thanksgiving party it was. And the moment they entered, Damen’s eye was caught by an extremely beautiful man standing not nearby the entrance, alone, calmly observing everyone around him. Damen was captivated.

Jokaste, being Jokaste, of course noticed immediately.

“Breathtaking, isn’t he?” She asked. “I mean, he’s pretty much the opposite of my type in everything, but I still have to admit he looks stunning.”

“Yeah,” Damen agreed.

“That’s Laurent,” Jokaste added with a grin.

Damen turned to stare at her – just for a moment, before his eyes returned to the incredible man. “ _That’s_ Laurent?”

“Yep.”

Damen had to take a moment to absorb that, as the image of Jokaste’s vicious lawyer friend and colleague, whom he’d always imagined looking a bit like Alan Rickman, morphed into...this. “You never mentioned he looked so...”

She arched her eyebrow. “I do not think that, when I was talking about him in work context, he’d have appreciated me mentioning he was beautiful. Besides which, he might be on the ace spectrum somewhere. He never does hookups, let alone anything more serious.”

“Oh. All right, then.” Damen did his best to be respectful, then, and to drag his eyes away.

With limited success.

Jokaste gave an exasperated, but amused sigh. “Come on,” she said, “I’ll introduce you.”

And before he could protest, she dragged him over.

Laurent, when he saw them, welcomed them with a small smirk. “Damianos, I presume,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“And you,” Damen returned. “I’ve heard so much about you from-” He turned to indicate Jokaste, only to find out she’d disappeared and left him alone with Laurent.

Laurent’s smirk widened.

“She really is quite evil sometimes, is she not?” He asked.

“No more than you, from what I hear,” Damen returned.

“Very true,” Laurent agreed, still smiling. 

“It amazes me,” Damen continued, “that two people who devote so much time to helping others can be such assholes.”

Laurent snorted. “You don’t mince words, do you?” As Damen began to wonder if he should offer and apology, Laurent waved him off. “No, you are entirely correct. But don’t forget dealing with assholes is a big part of our jobs. Without being one, at least to a degree, it’d be impossible to handle.” He shrugged. “I have Auguste – my brother – for the aspects of my work requiring not being a, as my colleagues say, ‘cast-iron bitch’.”

Damen snorted, then looked around. “Is he here?”

“Oh no. He hardly ever works with the government – the non-asshole approach is so rarely necessary there, you understand.”

Damen laughed outright at that. “They _are_ throwing a Thanksgiving work party,” he conceded.

“Precisely. Working in a foreign company has many perks, but not being forced to do a celebratory whitewashing of genocide has got to be one of them.”

“You could be quoting Jokaste right now.”

“We might have discussed this. At length. And some volume, on occasion. Not that our views on this weren’t closely aligned even before, but...”

Laurent trailed off, and Damen simply nodded. He knew perfectly well how discussing an issue with someone with similar views could make you more passionate about it, though in his case it was more often sports or popculture than charged political issues. But still, he lived with Jokaste. It was impossible to entirely avoid.

He smiled at Laurent, and a comfortable silence fell between them.

His eyes were, once again, attracted to the incredible man beside him.

That smirk was back.

“Do you think she will come back and rescue you soon?”

Damen flushed a little. “I don’t need rescuing,” he insisted.

“Please,” Laurent said with a scoff. “She sent you here to torment you.”

“Yeah,” Damen admitted grudgingly, “but not because I find your company uncomfortable or...”

“Oh, I know,” Laurent said with calm self-assurance. Then he added: “I do wonder, though, what she did say to make you resist hitting on me.”

Damen flushed harder. “She...ah, indicated you might be on the ace spectrum.”

“Mmm.”

What kind of answer was that? _Mmm?_ What the hell did that mean?

“I’m sorry if she- I mean, she shouldn’t have assumed-”

“She didn’t assume anything,” Laurent interrupted him. “It’s fine.”

Jokaste chose that moment to come back, with drinks as a very flimsy excuse for her absence. 

She handed one to Damen, and waited for him to drink before she asked: “So, arranged for that threesome yet?”

Predictably, Damen choked.

When he could speak again, he turned to her with a frown. “How can you- don’t make him uncomfortable, Jokaste.”

Laurent laughed at him. “Trust me, I am not made uncomfortable by discussing sex.”

“Even when it concerns you?”

Laurent shrugged. “No. I find most such attempts insulting, but this wasn’t one of them. It’s Jokaste, after all.”

That explanation didn’t make much sense to Damen. “You think she isn’t insulting…?”

“Oh no. But if she wanted to be insulting, she’d chose something much more personally tailored than this. This was just teasing, and teasing you to boot,” he explained with a sort of conspirational look towards her.

Damen was confused, and feeling in way over his head.

“So I take it he hasn’t yet?” Jokaste reinserted herself into he conversation blithely, as if Damen’s objection hadn’t happened.

“No, but I’ll consider it,” Laurent replied, and it was Jokaste’s turn to laugh.

“Is that one of those ‘we will let you know’ things they do at job interviews?”

Laurent’s eyes were dancing with mischief now. “No,” he said simply.

Jokaste stopped laughing and blinked at him for a moment.

“Okay,” she admitted after a moment, “you caught me by surprise. Even if it turned out you weren’t ace, I’m pretty sure you saw yourself firmly in the gay zone.”

“Perhaps I am bi-curious?” Laurent suggested, and Jokaste gave a snort.

“We’ll be talking about it at our next coffee,” she promised.

Laurent, again, only smirked, and they seemed to have an entirely conversation with just their eyes.

Damen was getting more and more uncomfortable as he stood there, watching them and wishing he knew what was going on.

Mercifully, Jokaste suddenly grinned, excused them then and guided Damen away, and had a moment to think there might actually be some things to give thanks for even on an evening like that.

-

He’d expected that would be the last he heard about the matter of a threesome with Laurent, except in the frequent dreams that resulted from the encounter

But a few weeks later, there was a Mawlid party at Laurent’s company where Jokaste was invited with a plus one. Damen was feeling a little tired that evening and not much up to partying, but she insisted they go anyway, and Damen thought it was mostly for Laurent. He just hoped it was because she was his friend and wanted to keep him company at a boring office party, and not because she meant to torture Damen some more.

“At least this is a better occasion for an office party that last time, right?” Damen tried to cheer her up as they were leaving the flat.

She grinned. “Not so much.”

That surprised Damen. “Why?” Not that he knew much about Mawlid, but he never heard of any controversies.

Jokaste snorted. “According to Laurent, Half the company management insist it shouldn’t actually be celebrated at all - much like with Thanksgiving, actually, though for entirely different reasons. But it’s the CEO’s favourite holiday, apparently, so tough luck on them. And on us, I suppose.”

Damen didn’t say anything, because personally, he was rather looking forward to the celebration. He was, yes, hoping he would see Laurent again, but quite without any ambition to actually have sex with him. The man was fascinating in how unexpected he was, and hard to figure out, and Damen just wanted another chance to do it.

He did, indeed, see him again. And when he did, there was another golden-haired man standing next to him, and Damen’s mind was already running at top speed with all sorts of imaginings – they were both beautiful, though the other didn’t have Laurent’s breathtaking quality – when Jokaste said: “That’s Auguste, his brother.”

Damen’s mind came to a screeching halt, and he fought not to flush. “Oh.”

Jokaste laughed at him as they headed to the drinks table.

“I suppose I should have seen the family resemblance,” he muttered.

“Hmm. Though they are hardly the same type, really, except for colouring and even there, not quite.”

“They give off very different vibes, even at the distance,” Dmane admitted.

“You have no idea. I don’t really know him well, I only saw him a few times and pretty much never spoke to him, but from what I hear about Laurent, Auguste is a cross between a greyhound and a golden retriever, and Laurent is a cat on a good day and snake on a bad one.”

Damen hummed. “Auguste is much more your type, isn’t he?”

“Absolutely,” Jokaste confirmed. “Both visually and when it comes to character.”

Damen opened his mouth when a voice from behind them said: “Should I be trying to arrange for a threesome for you this time, then?”

To his horror, when he turned, Damen saw that both Laurent _and_ Auguste were standing there.

Apparently, it was to be an evening of flushing for him once more.

“I’m afraid Damen would be the sticking point,” Laurent continued cheerfully, only the twinkle in his eye betraying he wasn’t oblivious to Damen’s distress. “My brother is by and large uninterested in men.”

“No offence,” Auguste added cheerfully and good-naturedly.

“None taken,” Damen said, a little weakly.

“You get used to Laurent,” the man continued.

“Well, I have been with Jokaste for a while, so...”

“Oh yes, I have heard stories,” Auguste said with a delighted grin, and his eyes slid to her.

Now Damen wasn’t the most observant of men, but if there was one thing he did tend to notice, it was when someone was interested. Mostly in him, but from time to time, he did see it when directed elsewhere, too.

“We are not actually a package deal,” he said slowly.

Jokaste turned her amused eyes to him. “Are you hoping that if I get a night with Auguste, you will get one with Laurent? Because I hate to break it to you...”

“Actually,” Laurent interrupted her, “as long as there were no particular expectations about what was to happen during that night, I might consider it. What say you, Auguste?”

Auguste was still looking at Jokaste. “I am very amenable, if the lady agrees.”

“Oh, the lady is more than happy to agree,” Jokaste said with a grin of the cat that got all the cream.

Damen was left thrown off balance once more. “Everyone present is comfortable with this?” He asked, looking at the brothers. He and Jokaste had had their open arrangement for a long time, but in his experience, it made most people uncomfortable.

“Of course,” Auguste said easily, “as long as you are.”

“Entirely,” Laurent added, in a self-satisfied tone, when Damen’s eyes turned to him.

And that was that.

Damen expected the moment to turn a bit awkward after, the way it sometimes did after these negotiations, but since he truly was comfortable, Auguste seemed to be so as well, and Jokaste and Laurent would probably never show even a hint of it even if they weren’t, they continued talking cheerfully about politics for another half an hour before they went their separate ways, with the understanding that the details of the agreed-upon night would be negotiated later.

-

When it arrived, Jokaste went over to Auguste’s flat, whereas Damen, after considering which setting held the least pressure and the most room for conversation, took Laurent to a bookstore that was open until late, with the plans for a walk in a nearby park for later, and then maybe a coffee or a beer if Laurent felt like it.

There was an unexpected delight in seeing Laurent rip most books in the bestseller section to shreds, sometimes because he’d read them, sometimes because he opened them and glanced over the first few pages only to pronounce them utter trash. A few, however, he considered promising, and even bought two.

During the walk, they discussed their favourites. Damen discovered that Laurent shared Jokaste’s fierce love for Jane Austen. “And if you say it’s romantic fluff, I’m going home right now,” he threatened.

Damen laughed. “I’d never dare. I like those books too, though probably not as much as you.”

“You read them?” Laurent asked, surprised.

“Not all, but Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Persuasion.”

“Those that Jokaste recommended,” Laurent realized immediately.

“Yes,” Damen admitted. “I freely confess that I wouldn’t have thought to read them otherwise, gender bullshit being what it is.”

Laurent nodded. “Try Sense and Sensibility, too,” he said then. “I understand why she did nto recommend it, Marianne is too irritating to tolerate, but it’s worth your time to read it at least once, it has some very good points. And Elinor is amazing.”

“You agree with the recommendations otherwise?” 

“Yes. Emma is, perhaps, not the best work, but I suspect Jokaste and I both like it for the same reason – she reminds us of our younger selves.”

“Well I hope I’m not as patronizing as Mr. Knightley!”

“No,” Laurent said simply and matter-of-factly. “You’re not.”

Damen admitted his favourite books were A Song of Ice and Fire, then, and Laurent gave him a sharp look and asked, “what do you think of the show?”, and when Damen exploded with “god I hate it”, he gave a satisfied smile and they were off discussing all the insufferable changes and how the ending was going to be nothing like the books.

When it got too cold to be comfortable, Damen asked Laurent if he wanted to continue this in a bar or a café, and got a sharp look in return, but Laurent did agree to a laid back coffee shop nearby. Once there, he settled on the most comfortable sofa like it was a throne, with an overly sweet latte something in front of him, while Damen sat opposite in a comfortable armchair, and listened to Laurent's analysis of the racism in Lord of the Rings. 

When the closing time drew near, Damen asked which way Laurent was going to find out if they had some bit of the journey in common, and received another sharp look. 

“You're not even a little disappointed you're not going home with me, are you?” 

Damen shook his head. “I wasn't expecting it.” 

“Why did you agree to the date, then?” Laurent asked with mild curiosity. “Just to make Jokaste feel like it was more equal?” 

Damen rolled his eyes. “We have a very open relationship, as I'm sure you know. We both sleep around. There's no need to match case for case.”

“Why, then?” 

Damen shrugged. “I wanted to. Simple as that.”

Laurent raised his eyebrows. “Even though you get nothing out of it?” 

Damen frowned a little. “I get your company. I didn't just like you for your looks, you know.” 

Laurent scoffed. “What, too noble for that?” 

Damen laughed. “No. I sleep with plenty of people just for their looks, and obviously I wouldn't agree to just go for a walk with them. But I was quite happy to simply talk to you.”

“Quite happy? Meaning you wouldn't appreciate something else too?” Laurent prodded.

Damen groaned. “Do you have to torture me?”

Laurent blinked at him mock-innocently. “I'm just asking.” 

Damen gave an exasperated huff. “The answer, obviously, is ‘only if you would’.” 

Laurent gave him one more inscrutable look. “I see,” he simply said, and that was that. 

-

The next morning, when Jokaste got home, Damen couldn't restrain his curiosity. “How was it?” He asked. He knew it was more difficult for her - a lot of one night stands were shitty to women in bed. 

“Amazing,” she replied with that far away look she got after several rounds of good sex. 

“Oh?” Damen was pleasantly surprised. “Better than me?”

She laughed. “Not quite, but in the same league, which is rare enough.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. And he was great personally too, you know, not an asshole. Though I suppose it goes hand in hand, really, asshole in and out of bed - or not.” 

Damen considered this rare gem. “You know,” he said, “you've never had a lasting arrangement the way I did with Erasmus or Lykaios. Maybe you'd want to try it with him, if he was amenable.”

Jokaste hesitated. “It's different though, isn't it?” 

“Different how?” 

She settled next to him on the sofa, looking at him carefully, and explained: “I know you like Erasmus well enough, you're very protective of him, but even when you were sleeping together, you'd never date him. He might be a bit of your type visually, but that's it. Auguste, on the other hand, is very similar in character to you.” 

Damen realized what she was getting at. He shrugged. “It's fine.” 

She raised her eyebrow. “You're that confident?” 

Damen looked for words to express how he felt about this. “It's more like… If you prefer him to me and decide to leave me for him, fair enough. I won't try to stop you by chaining you. It's not like you couldn't decide you preferred him without sleeping with him, anyway. “

She gave him a look that suddenly reminded him of Laurent. “It's moments like this,” she said, “that make it unlikely I'll ever leave you.” 

She leaned in to kiss him, and Damen, who’d been half put in the mood by seeing her enthusiastic sex with Auguste in his mind, responded with vigour, makign her laugh a little. “If you’re not too exhausted,” he muttered against her neck, where he’d moved his kisses.

“Oh no,” she told him, wriggling into his lap, “bring it on.”

It was only later, when they were lying naked in bed, that she reached for her phone to write to Auguste to let him know that there was a chance of a repeat experience, if he was interested.

 _Does this one include a parallel date for Laurent as well?_ Came the answer, and a moment later, _I suppose you should know that he’s looking over my shoulder as I type this so you should probably consider than in your answer._

Jokaste gave Damen a questioning look. “Sure,” he said. “If he’s interested, I’d be happy to.”

 _Damen is looking over mine and says 100%,_ Jokaste sent.

_It’s a deal. You guys free next Saturday? Also Laurent tells me to add that he’s ‘probably grey ace or something’. He says it’s supposed to help manage Damen’s expectations._

Damen couldn’t help but laugh.

And so it became a routine. About once a week, Jokaste would go visit Auguste - not always just for sex, sometimes they went out to dinner as well, since he had more of a taste for fine food than Damen did - and Damen met with Laurent. 

They went to parks and cafes and films and museums. They discovered a shared love of horse riding and went to do that, too. At some point about two months into this, they ended up near the building where both Laurent and Auguste lived in flats next to each other and Laurent gave him a look and asked, “if I invite you up will you see it as a code for sex?” and Damen had said “not unless you want me to”, and so sometimes they visited each other, too, and Damen got to see Laurent outside of his tailored, covering clothing and in the soft, overlarge and comfortable sweaters he wore at home. That didn’t exactly help his attraction, but he dealt with it privately and did his best not to bother Laurent with it. Not that Laurent ever forgot – from time to time he made a comment that made sure Damen knew he was well aware – but there was no need to make him uncomfortable.

Then some more months later they got really talking and Damen was too late for the last metro and so Laurent offered him a sleepover with no expectation of sex, and so that became a thing sometimes, too, followed by shared Sunday brunches with Jokaste and Auguste. Damen now sometimes saw Laurent sleepy in the morning, hair ruffled on his way tot he bathroom, and on those occasions he felt such fierce longing he had to turn away as to avoid discomfiting.

Not that Laurent ever looked discomfited. In fact, his comments were getting more and more suggestive as time went on, and Damen sometimes wondered, but didn’t want to push.

And then, next Thanksgiving, Jokaste found out she was pregnant.

“What happened?” Damen asked a little helplessly, staring at the two parallel lines on the two pregnancy tests.

Jokaste shrugged. “The pill must have failed in some way, maybe interacted badly with some meds I took. I don’t know, but...” She took a deep breath. “I’m not getting an abortion,” she said.

Damen felt a tightness he hadn’t even realized he’d been feeling leave him. “Good,” he said simply, and she gave him a small smile.

There was now only one problem left, then – the elephant in the room. Jokaste took a deep breath and bit the bullet. “I’m like 99% sure it’s either you or Auguste,” she said, beginning to pace. “I mean, I did sleep with like two other guys in the last two months, but I used a condom with them, so the chances of that are lower, and it wasn’t anywhere near ovulation, really.”

Damen shrugged. “It’s not like it matters if it was them – I mean, I assume you wouldn’t want to raise the kids with them?”

“Hell no,” she said immediately.

“All right. So, what do you want to do?”

“What do _you_ want to do?” She returned. “I don’t want it all to be on me.”

Damen shook his head. “I do have some thoughts, but I think it’s mostly your decision, so I’d like to hear you first.”

She exhaled, stopping her pacing and leaning on the counter. “Fine. I- don’t think it matters either way. I like what we have now. I wouldn’t want to leave you just because the child happens to be Auguste’s, if that was the case.”

“If it is, though, he’ll have a say in that as well,” Damen pointed out.

“He can hardly make me leave you,” Jokaste argued.

“I know, but...”

She sighed. “Perhaps I’d better talk to him before we needlessly speculate.” She hesitated. “I’d...prefer to do it alone, if you don’t mind.”

Damen nodded. He got on well with Auguste, but this was something else. “Of course,” he said. “I think I’ll go see Laurent, so that I’m nearby if you need me.”

She agreed to that plan, and picked up her phone.

“Auguste, I need to talk to you, urgently,” she said without preamble when he answered.

“Now? It’s Thanksgiving afternoon,” came the reply in the slightly garbled voice of the transmission.

“Don’t even try that, I know that you and Laurent both hate this holiday.”

“Of course, that’s not an issue. I meant because of your family dinner.”

Jokaste snorted. “It’s not like I want to see Kastor.” There had thankfully been no office party this year, so their plans had been a simple family dinner with the traditional turkey, gravy, and a lot of family tension – Kastor would be present, and neither of them wanted to see him. They weren’t on speaking terms since Damen punched him after he wouldn’t take no for an answer from Jokaste, but Damen’s father still insisted on his presence, and that his sons had to get along on holidays at least. In practice, it meant Kastor drank a lot and Damen and Jokaste left early.

In short, Damen was not exactly upset to exchange it for a time with Laurent either.

“It’s still Damen’s family,” Auguste said softly, and Damen bit his lip. Auguste and Laurent only had each other, and he knew from Laurent that was one of the reasons they hated Thanksgiving, apart from the shared cultural ones. What was a family holiday when you had no one to celebrate with?

“Tell him it’s fine,” he muttered, and Jokaste forwarded his message, adding: “I can promise you that what I need will take your mind off all the things you don’t want to think about, at least.”

“All right,” Auguste conceded, “come over.”

So they did.

The moment Laurent saw Damen’s face when he opened the door, he frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Damen walked past him and dropped onto the sofa. “Jokaste is pregnant,” he said without preamble. “She’s telling Auguste right now.”

“Oh. Do you know who…?”

“No.”

“ _Oh._ ” Laurent seemed to be frozen for a moment, then his frown deepened. “Auguste...is not going to take it well.”

Damen sat up. “What do you mean?”

Laurent waved his hand. “Not like that, he won’t be an asshole. But...we were raised to believe that being born outside of marriage is a big deal.”

“So, what, he’s going to insist Jokaste marries him?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent admitted.

“That’d go over well,” Damen said, amused but also a little upset by the idea.

“I’m sure.” Laurent paused. “What are the plans?”

Damen bit his lip. “Jokaste basically wants to keep things as they are now.”

“And you?”

Damen sighed. “It’s fine.”

Laurent gave him an intent look. “Yes, of course it’s _fine_ , but if it was up to you, what would you really want? For once in your life, forget everyone else.”

Damen did his best. “I think maybe, especially if Auguste is the father, I’d like us to be more tightly bound together,” he admitted after some consideration. “You know, not just ‘Jokaste goes over there once a week’. But...I’m worried. What if this breaks us?”

Laurent went to sit next to him. “It won’t,” he said firmly.

“Thanks for your confidence, but...”

Laurent put a finger to his lips. “Shh. I know all three of you very well, and I’m telling you it won’t fall apart. You won’t let it. Or I won’t let you.”

Damen smiled weakly. “That much faith in yourself?”

“Always.”

There was a silence, then Damen shook his head. “Sorry, I won’t be very good company tonight. I mostly came to be close to Jokaste but give her space. I realize that’s not exactly fair to you.”

Laurent rolled his eyes. “You are either the most selfless man in existence, or you must think I am the most selfish.”

Damen’s smile was more real this time. “Never the second, so I suppose it must be the first.”

Laurent laughed a little, and then he leaned in and hugged Damen.

Damen returned the embrace, and for a while he took comfort in it. But gradually, it began to change.

Laurent felt it.

He pulled away a little, and muttered: “Your libido truly does never sleep, does it?”

Damen flushed. “It’s not...I wouldn’t go out to pick someone up at the bar at this moment in time or anything. But this is different. We’ve known each other for a year. Sex is not disconnected from emotional intimacy for me, not when I know my partner. It helps me cope when when the situation is bad, enjoy it when it’s good...it just helps. I had sex with Jokaste on all of our most emotional moments.”

Laurent frowned a little. “Well, she’s your girlfriend.”

Damen shrugged. “Yes, but you’re...after her, you’re probably the person who knows me best.”

“Really?” Laurent tilted his head. “What about Nikandros?”

“Nikandros knows stuff about my history, sure, stories I probably never got around to telling you, but...he’s...we don’t really talk, you know? Not personally, I mean. He’s not that kind of person. We play games and watch films and I know if I needed his help with something he’d come in a minute, but it’d be weird to talk about really personal stuff with him. So in that way you know me better.”

Laurent seemed a little surprised by this, but merely hummed. “So if we had sex now, it would be terribly emotional sex?” He asked then, in his usual mischievous tone.

Damen laughed a little helplessly. “I guess.”

“What a shame.”

Damen peered at him, trying to read his face, but as ever, it was impossible. 

And then Laurent moved into his lap.

“Laurent...” Damen said, a little unsure, a little stunned.

“Shh. Do you want me to take your mind off things?”

Damen frowned. “No. If you want to have sex with me, I want it to be because you actually want to have sex, and not because you want to take my mind off things.”

Laurent rolled his eyes in fond exasperation. “You’re hopeless. Yes, Damen, I want to have sex with you, but I’m not sure now is the best time, if you really need it spelled out.”

“Are you sure?” Damen asked, now downright astonished.

Another eyeroll. “Yes, I am sure. I spent the last several months thinking it over, in increasingly vivid detail.”

And suddenly, with that idea in his mind, Damen was a lot less hesitant.

“Have you...done this before?” He asked in a last ditch effort to curb himself.

“Just once. The partner in question was not considerate, so it’s not a...pleasant memory. I hope you can provide a better one,” Laurent muttered while trailing a finger down his face, and Damen was lost.

Laurent was different from anyone else Damen had ever slept with. Everyone was different, of course, but Laurent even more so. He wasn’t exactly shy, but not exactly forward either, and it was as if he combined experience and inexperience in unexpected ways. Some of them, like his surprise at tenderness, made Damen want to go find Damen’s previous aprtner and beat him up, but then he was distracted by pleasanter things.

Laurent was unfazed by the prospect of anal sex, but almost flew off the bed when Damen’s lips touched his cock, and whiel he was capable of the most explicit dirty talk, when he came, it was quiet and almost innocent, if coming ever could be.

He was, in bed as everywhere else, a study in paradoxes, and Damen was entirely enchanted.

“Hmm,” Laurent muttered afterwards, when he’d cleaned himself up and slid back under the covers. “I might actually be convinced there is a reason people are so obsessed with sex.

Damen laughed, and was just about to make a sappy comment about this Thanksgiving giving him something to be thankful for after all, when the afterglow was ruined by a message from Jokaste. _He wants me to marry,_ it simply said without preamble. _He doesn’t seem to care who, but he’s fixed on the marriage idea._

Damen frowned, and showed the message to Laurent, who mimicked his expression for a moment before it transformed into a slow grin. “What kind of marriage would he consider legitimate?” He asked.

“How should I know? It’s your brother!”

“Good point.” And to Damen’s astonishment, Laurent took out his phone and dialled, right there in bed, with Damen next to him still having traces of lube on him, because he was much less fastidious in his cleaning.

“Hey, Auguste,” he said, and Damen, irrationally, felt like covering them with a blanket even though Auguste was not physically present and could not see them.

“Laurent,” Damen could hear from the other side. “Now’s not the best time.”

“I’m aware. Tell me, brother, what forms of marriage do you consider legitimate?”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply that there are several cultures out there, mostly around Tiber, that practice polyandry.”

Damen blinked, while Auguste on the other side gave a loud exhale. “I meant a real marriage.”

“Oh?” Laurent said dangerously. “So if I married someone in a religious ceremony before the equal marriage act was passed, you wouldn’t have recognized it?”

Auguste sighed. “That’s not...that’s not what I meant. You would have actually believed that.”

“And what is it you would believe if you married Jokaste in a civil ceremony? The power of the great US of A? It is Thanksgiving, after all.”

Auguste, on the other side, almost growled. “It’s not about...it’s about the promise.”

“I know,” Laurent said, his voice softening. “That’s why I asked what kind of marriage you’d recognize, because I can get you a dozen people willing to marry both of you to Jokaste by tomorrow.”

There was a long silence on the other side. “I’ll think about it,” Auguste said at length.

“That’s all I ask.”

Laurent hanged up and turned to Damen with a self-satisfied smile.

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Damen asked him pointedly.

“Are you bothered that I didn’t ask you first?” Laurent frowned a little. “I assumed you wouldn’t have a problem with it, since it was effectively what you said you wanted, but I’m sorry if I overstepped...”

Damen shook his head. “No. I mean you’re forgetting yourself. If me and Auguste both marry Jokaste...what about you?”

Laurent blinked at him. “Damen...we are friends who had sex once.”

“Does that mean you don’t want a repeat performance?” Damen asked with a smirk.

Laurent flushed. “It’s still different.”

“Perhaps,” Damen said more seriously. “But in spite of what you said, it’ll take Auguste time to decide, and then more time to arrange everything if he says yes. You have time to see what you want with me and to think about this, just like your brother. And like you, that’s all I ask.”

Laurent gave him a long, intent look. “That,” he said then, “was the lamest marriage proposal I have ever heard.”

-

There was once again a Mawlid party a week later, and once again Jokaste and Damen were invited. They still had no answer from Auguste or Laurent, and it was a constant source of low-key nervousness in Damen’s gut. He and Jokaste both agreed that if they were to marry, this was the best way to do it, whether Laurent agreed to join in or not. But it would be reassuring that this was, indeed, about to be their future. Damen didn’t like uncertainty.

Laurent was once again the first thing he saw when he walked into the party. He looked amazing, in a dark blue suit that brought out his eyes. Auguste next to him was very fetchign too, and the brother came to them with glasses of some fancy drinks and steered them through the room towards a balcony with a good view of the national mall. 

And then Auguste took out three boxes, and handed one to Damen and two to Jokaste.

Curious, Damen opened it – and stared at what was very clearly an engagement ring, tasteful and masculine enough, but with a clear purpose.

He looked at Jokaste, and from her face could tell that she had received something very similar.

“If you want to wear one, I will obviously get it,” Auguste was saying, “but given the circumstances, I thought-”

Jokaste interrupted him by going to her knees and taking both his and Damen’s hand.

She slid their rings on, and there were kisses and tears, but there was something missing, and so Damen extracted himself from the three-way hug and turned to Laurent, standing in the background and looking satisfied.

“Did he take much convincing?” Damen asked.

Laurent shook his head. “He’s not o used to thinking creatively, so the idea was strange to him, but once he got used to it, he realized there was nothing he wanted more,” he said with a small smile.

“And you? I assume your brother did not buy this ring,” he shook the box in his hand, “without consulting you?”

“No,” Laurent said quietly.

Without a word, Damen went down to one knee.

-

Mawlid and Thanksgiving were just a day apart this year, and so the Akielos-Vere-Basileia family decided to tell all bosses with office party ideas where they could shove them and have a long holiday instead.

On Tuesday evening, they left the city and headed north, Damen behind the wheel of what Auguste fondly called their “papa wagon”. Auguste was in the passenger seat next to him, while in the back, Laurent and Jokaste were each sitting with one of the twins. 

It wasn’t a fair division: while Egeria was asleep, like the good girl she was – she very obviously took after Damen, as he liked to remind everyone – Nicaise was making Laurent’s live extremely difficult. 

“I am beginning to suspect,” the man muttered, barely audible over the infant’s protests, “that somehow, mysteriously, Auguste and Damen share the parentage of Egeria, while Nicaise is wholly mine and Jokaste’s, in spite of the two of us being the only two unrelated adults here who never had sex with each other.”

“That’s right, you still owe me that threesome,” Jokaste said with a laugh.

“The actual biological parentage situation is weird enough, little brother,” Auguste said fondly. “Do you have to make it even more complicated?”

“It would explain so much, though,” Damen pointed out.

“Be thankful it’s not actually biologically possible and don’t complain,” Jokaste advised blithely.

Damen was thankful for many things this year, but this was not one of them. If the last twelve months had taught him something, it was that biology was not as important as everyone though. 

The other thing they taught him was that whatever position on celebrating the Mawlid prevailed in Laurent and Auguste’s company, there were two births this new family was always going to celebrate, and always give thanks for. 

Feeling a little sappy, he voiced the last thought, fully expecting reprimands, but Laurent merely said: “Three births.”

“Three?”

“A year ago, this family was born,” Jokaste answered.

**Author's Note:**

> This story could have easily been a full-fledged multi-chaptered one, but I have way too many of those already, and most of them way overdue for a update, plus I wanted to finish this for Thanksgiving since I missed mawlid already, so you get this instead.
> 
> Just for the record, Auguste and Laurent are not really meant to be religious. With the polyandry happening in this fic, it seemed like a bit much.
> 
> Oh and in case you missed the tags, Laurent is supposed to be demisexual. I meant for him to figure it out after he sleeps with Damen a few times, but it didn't really fit.


End file.
